As Good as Live Aid (85)

Wednesday, October 17

Ya ever hear the one about the seperated shoulder? Its children went on to murder the pets! Obscure enough for ya? Shablam dear readers. Obscurity is what I'm here to deliver. And if potentially ambiguous divorce jokes aren't enough, I'm actually going to use that very lame opener as the thesis statement for the following short but probably awesome article.

Yes. Stud defenceman and shots (wide of the net) leader Sheldon Souray is out indefinitely with a seperated shoulder. Its gonna be tough to get a lot of flex in the stick with that joint on the fritz. Evidently he suffered it on Hockey Night in Canada against Vancouver last saturday. I could've imagined maybe a badly burned face from being so embarassed, or even maybe a sprained eyelid from rolling his eyes back in his head after every whistle, but no, the ole shoulder bones ain't what they used to be and now we have no masterful power play quarterback... oh wait.

So maybe this looks bad for the Oilers chances in the near future. In an uncharacteristic move I'm going to try a little positive spin on this and put forth that it may actually help the team's power play a little. It will certainly force them to find some other option on the PP, which is something they've not been prone to doing. The opposing PK will just be standing up around the blue line around Steve Staios (cleverly wearing the number 44 and sitting on Ladislav Smid's shoulders in a classic sheep in wolves clothing maneuver) wondering why the puck isn't there all the time like in every one of the last games. And Sheldon has rapidly risen to the top of the own-zone-giveaway-turns-to-game-winning-goal or OZGTTGWG stat so we may even be a little better off in our own zone. In trying to pronounce that stat out loud I choked on my own tongue, died, went to heaven and was tasked with returning here to continue my vague observations and scathing repartee on what is shaping up to be another one of those years for us. Wait. That might not have been heaven.